James L. Brook'ssmartly
satire Broadcast News was one of 20th Century Fox's prestige
projects in the late 80's which received a lot of praise and was
nominated for no less than seven academy awards, including best writing,
screenplay and picture. It offers a caustic peek at the many different
facets of TV news business spiced with a love triangle between the three
different main characters who could not be more different from each
other: Tom Grunnick is the pretty but not too intelligent anchor-boy who
sees the news as just another form of entertaining the masses and is
just trying to sell himself as good as possible. The network's news
producer Jane Craig and the talented correspondent Aaron completely
despise Tom's attitude but that does not save Jane from developing
strong feelings for Tom. Actors Hurt, Hunter and Brooks all deliver some
of their best moments in their roles which definitely sold the entire
film and made it the hit with the critics and audience that it was.

The score:

James L. Brooks is notorious for being
a perfectionist about every aspect of a production which is most likely
due to his background as a producer and composer Bill Conti had to
experience that when he did the score for Broadcast News. Brooks
asked Conti to write something that would make him cry but he was never
really satisfied with Conti's output. 40 scoring sessions and three
composers later there were 2 1/2 hours of music which finally contained
a suitable score for the film that meet the demands of director Brooks
but one can definitely notice the troubled creation of the music. This
music is naturally very different from Conti's powerhouse scores like
Masters of the Universe from the same year but that's not the
problem. His score for Broadcast News simply lacks of a strong
identity unlike Conti's other more subtle work like Slow Dancing In
The Big City (1978). The majority of the score consists of jazzy
source music for various party situations and the rest is subtle
romantic piano playing interrupted with some reservedly light-hearted
orchestral moments. Conti himself called the movie a 'talkie', obviously
due to the importance of the dialogue, which was the reason for the
rather subtle approach.

"Young Tom" is introducing some sort of
main theme and goes right into "Young Jane / Main Title". Both cues make
only limited use of the orchestra with a light-hearted bouncy comedic
sound ala Elmer Bernstein. Mainly cues from the first half of the score
are more on the comedic and sometimes tumultuous side, like "First Day",
"Old News Theme" or "Tom's Rise". However, that's the minority. The
piano is the main instrument of the emotional underscore of Broadcast
News which creates some nice, tender moments as the love triangle
between the characters thickens in such cues like "Jefferson Memorial",
"Jane Calls Tom" and "Firings". Although Conti's versions of these cues
did not make the cut and Michael Gore's takes ended up in the film. The
original versions as intended by Conti are included on the CD but they
come along as rather unspectacular. This is actually one of the few
instances where re-scoring by a secondary composer actually helped the
score a little but it also leads to inconsistency.

Then there is the source music in cues
like "Piano One", "Post-Report Celebration", "News Theme Ballad",
"Italian Embassy" and "Dinner Dance". Some of these cues are quite
enjoyable, most notably the tender "Post-Report Celebration" and the
softly swinging "Dinner Dance" but they simply break the flow of the
underscore because they don't offer any musical development. They are
just... there and it does not really help the score much.

Review by Andreas Creutzburg

RATING:

Score as heard in the film:
58%

Score as heard on CD:60%

TOTAL:
59%

The
presentation:

The score is now a part of the Varese
Sarabande CD Club as a limited edition of 2000 copies.
The liner notes are the highlight of the presentation which are pretty
enjoyable to read, very informative and even offer comments by Bill
Conti about his experience with Broadcast News. 68
minutes of the 2 1/2 hours of recordings are included on this CD which
is the entire score as heard in the film plus various alternate and
unused versions as originally intended by Bill Conti. The sounds quality
is good but at times the quiet underscore seems to be mixed a little bit
too loud.

Presentation by
the Label:76%

Summary:

Broadcast News is a break from Bill Conti's big orchestral sound
but sadly it's just your typical romantic comedy score with all clichés
the genre has to offer - nothing more and nothing less. The subtle score
even lacks of a strong identity due to endless re-scoring and the
involvement of two other composers. Sure, after 40 scoring sessions the
chances are slim that a composition can remain enough consistency to
make an enjoyable listening experience on CD. As it is, Broadcast
News just comes, goes and leaves the listener highly unsatisfied. I
would recommend to enjoy the score by watching the nice film. The CD
only makes for nice background music when you are doing other things and
is only recommended to Bill Conti completists. If you seek a strong but
subtle Conti score you should go for Slow Dancing In The Big City
(1978) instead, not to mention that this one is paired with the
excellent score for F.I.S.T. (1978) on the same CD.